Saturday, January 11, 2014
Competition Among U.S. Mobile Carriers Escalates

T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T are all making aggressive moves in order to attract more customers on their mobile networks.

T-Mobile US has been trying to lure customers from other carriers for quite some time now. No. 2 operator AT&T counterattacked on January 3 at CES by offering to pay consumers to switch from T-Mobile. Days later, No. 3 ranked Sprint promised big discounts for family and friend groups. On Wednesday T-Mobile responded saying it would pay hefty exit costs for converts.

The moves by Sprint and AT&T come after No. 4 U.S. operator T-Mobile was able to report three full quarters of customer growth after four years of losses.

AT&T did not change its service rates, but it is offering customers a $200 credit to switch to its network. The company is the easiest target for T-Mobile, which it tried to buy in 2011, since they use the same technology, so it is simple for customers to switch between services.

Their battle got more personal at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas when AT&T kicked Legere out of its party, a concert featuring rapper Macklemore.

Previously, at T-Mobile's own event, Legere took to the stage to make fun of AT&T and its executives.

Competition could escalate further later on this year when Sprint, which is 80 percent-owned by Japan's SoftBank Corp, is expected to try hard to take back customers who have left because of technical problems from a network overhaul.